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*Why I was a mature student

From my UK-based perspective, I didn't get the A level results I wanted (or needed) to go to university. Granted, they were probably the results I deserved, seeing as I was quite lazy at school and didn't do much work. I love learning, but I hate exams.

To this day, I don't know if that was a good or a bad thing. For a start, I wasn't even sure whether university was something I wanted to do. The career department at our school was equipped to deal with one thing and one thing only, and that was getting everyone into university. If you didn't want to get into university, then our school practically refused to help. I also know now that if I'd fluked the results to get into university, chances are, with my laziness, I'd have failed too many exams and got kicked out quite soon.

So, did I want to go to university, or was I pushed into thinking I was by the school, or the fact that all my friends were likely to go? I wasn't even certain what I wanted to do with my life when I was 18, and my university entrance (UCCA/UCAS) form was a list of five different degrees all at the same university.

So, I went to work. Eventually, I joined Royal Mail here in the UK, and spent the next few years doing a dull, but relatively well paid job. I enjoyed most of my time there, making some good friends and participating in some social and sporting events.

Eventually though, it became apparent that I was going nowhere, and I'd always had that nagging feeling that I should be doing something I enjoyed that interested me as well as tested me, instead of reading people's mail all day long. I decided that I wanted to have a career in the I.T. industry, and for 99% of the interesting jobs in that field, I'd need a degree.

*How I became a mature student

Taking the bull by the horns, I applied for a place on one of the Access courses (a course designed for mature students to gain entrance to university) at my local college. I was reliably informed by the interviewer that with my one A level and good GCSE passes, obtaining a place was simply a matter of my saying "Yes" as she offered me the place there and then.

I didn't want to leave work, however, and through a stroke of good fortune, I managed to obtain part time hours that would work well with my college timetable.

I enjoyed my single year of this course, and did very well, thank you very much (I missed out on the all time top marks for the course because I made a few silly mistakes in one of my exams). This enabled

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